Respondo!

Hi guys. Yes, you may be wondering why the newest video isn’t funny, nor is it a dub. That’s because I know these three guys that make music, and I want to help them out. I want to promote for them. That’s why that video is up. They are Respondents.

Does it have anything to do with me? Yes it does. I directed, edited, lit, and had the pain of directing lead-guitarist Matt Runda (a very opinionated dude, God bless him) to make it. Sorry for the shakyness of the camera but we’re not made out of money, and I can’t afford an awesome steadicam system.

You can listen to some Respondents songs from their EP right here. I hope you like this music video, which I worked fairly hard on. Its far from what I imagined in my head, but circumstances prohibited that to come into fulfillment.

Yeah, I was the one that shot all the footage. I didn’t have any “assistance” (except the very helpful aids that were kind enough to hold lights and reflectors because I was not able to: Caleb, Jake, TJ, Stephanie, Lionel. Thanks!)

Don’t worry, more dubs to come. Don’t worry; I’ll be funny again.

In case you didn’t see it on Youtube; or any other place for that matter: I linked it for you:

Summer Movies!

Hey, guys! I’m going to try to keep this up-to-date with various things. Because Drew, who’s idea this actually was,  has violated and broken the structure

not impressed.

of this blog (one day me, one day Drew), I’ll most likely be the most frequent poster on here. Not like any of you will actually be reading, but its a fun excersize for me anyway.

To start off with; let’s talk about summer blockbusters. To be frightfully fair, that’s the only time I actually go to movie theaters (yeah, a filmmaker such as myself… only going to theaters for the crappy big-budget flick?), It’s true. I have no shame in that.  I find them to be entertaining, and I use them to reassure myself of its crappyness so I can feel a lot better about life: that there still isn’t some super-amazing film that came out yet (don’t even go there, Dark Knight people! Dark Knight was good. I admit. It was the best in a looooong time.).

It’s safe to say that I’m not like you other guys, where I seek life-changing enlightenment from stuff made by a bunch of guys in the film industry (independent or non). I just watch it for entertainment’s sake. I analyze movies, that’s for sure, I see the underpinnings and the themes; but I don’t feel the same way most do. I just take it as it is. I think that’s a good thing, considering if I want to make movies, its better to keep your mind straight and focused then “swept away” in the moment of experiencing a movie. Don’t get me wrong: I see the experience in the movie I watch. I just choose not to comply with it. For me, its healthy and I like it.

Anyway, to the mini-reviews of my SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER experience this year! I just watched two movies (okay, three); and they were: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (only the unfinished workprint version… but I loved watching that version. Loved it.), Star Trek, and Terminator Salvation.

I’m not going to elaborate, because I tend to agree with critics at Rottentomatoes.com. However, I have a problem with their ratings for Star Trek . While the movie was enjoyable, and mildly interesting, it was not ground-breaking nor impressive. Really, It was okay. Cinematography was (yawn) nothing new… same old, teal-ish grading and

Laugh all you want; Abrams is considered a god among many nerds.

late-00s lighting set-ups. Acting was nice. Casting was nice. Except Simon Pegg, as good as he is; He’s Simon Pegg. I like him, but not as Scotty. He is Tim from “Spaced”, Chris from “Hot Fuzz”, Shawn of “Shawn of the Dead”, but he’s not Scotty. I can’t accept this. Anyway no, its not as good as critics give it credit for. Definitely not. Most importantly:

Apparently J.J. Abrams blasts his cameramen with seizure-causing flashes before filming a take; because there is hellaciously annoying camera-movement throughout the entire picture. The camera is a shaky shaky mess! Not to mention the action scenes! Oh, man. That was bad. It’s worse than Batman Begins’.

So anyway: Decent movie. In the “real” universe, this STAR TREK movie scored a decent 70% Fresh on Rottentomatoes. Not the 95% it got in this alternate reality. Much like the one in the movie.

Terminator Salvation was the problem I faced. This whole year, as people were anticipating this movie to come out, we all were in a deep controversy over the film’s quality (omg htis isnt rated R!!!!1111); I didn’t care about the rating as much as I cared about the attached director: McG. For starters, Who calls himself McG? Also, seeing his track record of three lame movies. One of them being a stupid football movie of mediocrity; and the other two being Charlie’s Angels 1 and 2. I was pretty confident that McG would mediocrify this newest Terminator film. Many film-buffs and friends of mine, who are deep-thinking film critics in their own rights, told me to “have hope” in McG’s skills. Thankfully I was right all along, and my routine IMDB pre-rating on Terminator: Salvation was TOTALLY accurate. I predicted a 5 out of 10; and that’s what it is. A very very forgetful and messed up movie. So much potential gone down the toilet. Thanks, McG.

Hugh Jackman discovers a poorly placed water jet in his hot tub.

Watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine was fun. Why? Because I watched it a month in advance. How? Because of the leaked workprint I got from a friend. I enjoyed every minute of it. It’s like a dream come true: I was able to see an unfinished workprint of a blockbuster movie! It was soooo fun! So fun to see unfinished effects, so fun to see crappy sounds, and temp music. The temp music! I recognized every cue and song inside it! It was predominantly the score for “Transformers”, with a little bit of “Blade”, and a little from “300″. It was also interesting to compare it with the final version. The music by Harry Gregs0n-Williams was a knock-off of the temp-music; it was highly mediocre.

Anyway, did you want to know about what I thought about the movie? I twas mediocre. A dumb action movie with really no grit or interesting factors in it. 20th Century Fox said that that was an “early” workprint, that was leaked out; but I knew that not much would change; and it hasn’t.

What’s the verdict? I’ll do it in percentage:

Star Trek: 70% | Terminator Salvation: 30% | X-Men Origins: Wolverine: 40%

So what’s next in the busting of blocks? I think it’s Transformers: This Movie Will Suck, and Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Movie.

I’m betting STAR TREK will be the best of the year, and that’s not saying much. Then again, there is “The Wolf Man” remake in November. But that is also going to be mediocre thanks to Joe Johnston directing. Joe is a great effects designer (he designed the X-Wings and TIE Fighters in the original Star Wars), but his movies were mediocre at best.

Three time's the charm

This is for everyone who every watched and still watches the Powerpuff Girls…

No, seriously. I love the show. I watched it ever since it first began, in 1998. I’m a boy, by the way… and I liked it. Because, the show was created not specifically for girls to begin with, right? Correctamundo!

It’s been 7 years since I’ve seen an episode… until I was able to borrow a copy of the Complete Series DVD set from my local library, that is. This was pretty much a week ago. Looking at the cartoon now, 10 years older than I was when I took this seriously (as a 9 year old) I appreciate it more. It’s highly entertaining and funny! I, like many of you guys that actually were man enough to watch this show, became instantly glued to what we all spotted in the main title of the series.

“Awww man! There are the ‘Powerpuff Boys’ too!”

Oh yes. Ever since spotting this amazing phenomenon, I was ANTICIPATING the episodes where they appeared! I kept wondering: where are they? Surely such extremely important characters (equally-strong, bug-eyed, counterparts to the girls) couldn’t be in one episode?

I mean, consider this: throughout most of the series, the strange-looking Powerpuff Girls were identified as very special individuals; possessing unparalleled super-powers and defeating every foe they encounter. Unstoppable and known and loved by all citizens of Townsville: they are obviously the heart of this entire series. So far, there has not been ANY villain that has come close to matching the trio in terms of strength. Ever. All of them usually get beat up in humorously violent ways.

Not until I saw the episode, “The Rowdyruff Boys”.

Left to Right: Boomer, Brick, Butch

Oh boy… now, here’s what my 9 year–old mind related to. I liked the show, but wow, opposites of the Powerpuff Girls? Their male equivalents? Instantly glued! This is Colossal! I’m sure many, many other boys watching this show on Cartoon Network at that time felt the same. It’s characters I related to, and it was great actually seeing the unbeatable Powerpuff Girls actually meeting their match. It felt empowering and really really special to me. Sure, they blew up at the end (which I loudly protested about while seeing it), but there was NO WAY characters THAT important were going to be set aside like other one-shot villains, such as that slug-monster from Episode 25, or the lame stinky creature from episode “Whatever”… right? … right? This was battling fire-with-fire… this was a clash of tiny titans!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

This was a pathetic decision. This is the point of this piece of writing: the creative team seriously didn’t think the Rowdyruff Boys were strong enough to be placed as permanent residents of “The Powerpuff Girls” universe.

There are certain logical reasons, that I believe were talked about whenever they (creative team: Paul Rudish, Clayton Morrow, Genndy Tartakovsky-yup, the Dexter’s Laboratory guy, and Craig McCracken) were discussing this particular (in my opinion, most important) episode. I shall do my best to figure out logical reasons why this story-changing concept was not to be continued:

-It probably had to do with the fact that the Rowdyruff Boys were slightly physically stronger than the Powerpuff Girls. Having them permanent residents within the universe, would also mean that there would be many clashes, and each of them would become a long, boring effort any time they would meet.

Stare! Stare! Stare!

-Because they are slightly more powerful than the girls, they would eventually have destroyed them; obviously, ending the series.

-The creative team didn’t take enough time on the characters, and probably didn’t know how to characterize each boy, resulting in having nothing interesting the Rowdyruff Boys could do. (if you see the first episode… they have hardly any personality at all)

All three reasons have one answer: lack of interest. Too bad the reason WHY this lack of interest has happened, will never be revealed (unless I suddenly became friends with a few of the guys who worked on this)… Okay, fine, want my answers to these reasons?

they blew up after this.

Reason 1 has a lot to do with the Boys’ personality. Sure, the first episode was a wonderful Introduction, but how about making their aspirations and purpose something else? They don’t have to fight the Powerpuff Girls everytime they meet. They don’t have to always become their enemies in the show. Just let them EXIST, for crying out loud! Let them be the mean testosterone-induced big-headed shadow-versions of the girls in the show! Let them do things on their own! Let them develop! Let them dooooo stuuuuuuffff!!!!

Seriously: I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t grasp why this equilibrically balanced idea, as natural and genius as it may be, was just set aside like the slug-monster from episode 25. I’ll take some time to compare how important these three characters are to this series. The equivalent to taking them out and forgetting them, would be like: taking out Shadow from “Sonic The Hedgehog”; taking out Mewtwo opposite of Mew in “Pokemon”; taking out Venom opposite of Spiderman; taking out Wario as opposite to Mario; taking out Agent Smith to Neo; Sabretooth to Wolverine; Evil Ash to Good Ash in “Army of Darkness”; taking out those funky colored versions of each character in Super Smash Bros.!!

4 years later… when I really didn’t care much about the show anymore, let alone watch it, it came to my attention that the Rowdyruff Boys were written back in, and revived! Apparently, seasons 5 to 6 was the slow demise of the show. Apparently drastic action had to have been taken. Perhaps the boys caught many many more fans’ attention than I thought. In any case, the idea was most likely forced on the show. And it didn’t work. I didn’t see any of the newer episodes the time they premiered. Too late, too bad.

5 years after that; I picked up the 10th Anniversary Collection at the library, and was very interested in watching the newer episodes: and these are my thoughts:

Design Change

The Rowdyruff Boys return with a resistance to their only weakness: cooties. The Satan-Character, Him, re-created the boys (the first time it was Mojo Jojo) with vaccination. Alongside the vaccination, whenever they are kissed, they grow in size and power. Brilliant. Pretty much what we all wanted in the first place! Second, the new hairstyles. Sure, its alright. I kind of liked Brick’s older hairdo better.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

And third, and most importantly: They have personalities! Whoooaoaaaaa! In the first Episode, they had the personality no greater than a toaster oven; none of them had any individuality. This time around we’ve got a commandeering, self-obsessed leader, Brick; a dumb blond (think… Raiden from “MGS2″); and a hyper-aggressive borderline psychotic piece of craziness in Butch.I love that excited twitch he makes every time he anticipates violence. Good job!

This is great and all, but I am just very upset at the sheer stupidity of these characters. They’re stupid.

Insanity! Insanity! Insanity!

There’s nothing to it. Where the Powerpuff Girls are tactile and smart, the Rowdyruff Boys are completely the opposite. Also, all they seem to do is punch each other, steal, and spit at stuff in their downtime, with nothing better to do. While these factors fit with the boyish representation they display; its disappointing because, genetically, they should be the exact same to the Powerpuff Girls; the only difference would be: They’re boys.

What I would have liked, in this show, is to have seen the Rowdyruff Boys become far more sophisticated, tactile, and smart during the run of the show, and definetly have better things to do than the three fairly lame stories they were in, in the following Season 5 and 6 episodes. How wonderful would it have been to see a full-blown movie where the boys, with their accumulated experience and knowledge, square off with the girls? I thought it would have been incredible. Make it loud, put in some Rammstein, make these mighty midgets duke it out in a destructive battle royale in the vein of Dragonball Z (with the hour-long staring scenes cut out), and the destructive-range of Godzilla! That would have been hilarious, as it would have been cool!

Still don't like Brick's hair.

In fact, I attempted to write  a script for “The Powerpuff Girls Movie” in which this precisely happens. However, since I was 11 while writing it, and thankfully the script is lost and I have no idea where it is… it sucks… in a major way.

Another thing I hated, and still get mildly annoyed about, is how comic books and magazines based on the Powerpuff Girls, include the Rowdyruff Boys in its issues, but massively downplay and make fun of them. In one of the comics, I heard that they get beaten by a squirrel. In another, they’re dismissed as foes the Powerpuff Girls easily defeated.It makes one wonder: who are these writers, and why are they acting like 6-year-old kindergartners?*

In any case; the question still remains: Why. Why were they discarded? Why weren’t they what they could have been? Why such negligence?

Classic Shot? It should have been.

To be honest, I have had my childishness return to me for a while, while watching the new episodes of the Rowdyruff Boys a day ago. I was smiling and fairly excited to see these guys back in action. Just think… think about how much better this show would have been (and a lot less girl-stereotyped) with the permanent inclusion of the Rowdyruff Boys… not only limited to lame storylines, but as major players  within the whole thing.So much potential, so many excited fans, all gone. Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot.

* – here is a response to a fan-letter from a Powerpuff Girls comics magazine…kind of juvenile nature I’m talking about.

Let's Talk

Rawwglefragglemarrgledurrgle! Okay, so here’s the deal: It’s summer and that means colleges kick everyone out. That also means Drew will be able, but most likely not willing to, finish up the second part of the 1978 wonder of our “Lord of the Rings” dub! This is good. However, I must force him.

Oh yeah, Star Trek came out. That crazy piece of work… alright, do you want to know what I thought? Well, I thought EXACTLY what the famous(er than us) James Rolfe (aka the Angry Video Game Nerd) thought. Yes. Click that link and watch his video. It’s good. My thoughts exactly.

So, I was doodling around and I was actually watching my own LOTR dubs! It was alright, I guess. So I drew my first Gandalf (1978 style) and this kind of is our mood this month:

He looked at it... gave it a good look... kept looking at it for a long time!

So yeah! Is that all I have to say? Well, you can always check out some new stuff I made on Flickr, DeviantArt, or whatever. I mean, it’s all good right?

Cheers. More Bakshi wonders to come once I tell Drew to shut up and work on it! (hopefully it will end well)

 

Vozzie has a media headache.

I want you to observe that I am indeed POSTING on this fine blog of ours.  Time has not provided me opportunity to share my thoughts with those of you on the web.  Now, the time has come for an update.

 

The reasons for my absence are more than legitimate.  Over the next two weeks, I have a short documentary, two stop-motion animations, a 3D turnaround animation, a Photoshop project, and a 35 second demo-reel EXTRAVAGANZA to finish.

While this is going on, I have not been doing much of anything exciting.  I have begun to work on organizing my music collection, but I am not doing anything super valuable.

In the recent future, I am going to redesign my website!  I am looking at creating a database-driven site that is able to generate new pages based on content provided in a database.  This means I could have more flexible design changes and more organized media!

Now that I’ve wasted plenty of words on here, let me say that I have seen neither Watchmen nor Wolverine.  That is because neither has attained enough praise to warrant my viewing (although Watchmen has come close).

Also, I have been pretty disappointed with action movie scores lately.  Times sure have changed.

Well, time for my nose to go back where it is uncomfortable: the grindstone.

Vozzie

Double-Poster

Because Drew is being a dork and not updating anything, I guess I have to break his stupid rule that we take turns. It’s BEEN A LONG TIME.

So, because nothing new is happening, and we can’t do any dubs because Drew is “busy”, I guess I’ll have to do something myself. Oh yeah, I’ve been busy too.

Hey, because I feel like being a selfish person… check out some of my artsy fartsy stuff I did on DeviantArt! I’ve been listening to a lot of music from Studio Ghibli films (great stuff), primarily (but not limited to) Joe Hisaishi. I also didn’t really like the CD covers for the soundtracks so I decided to make some myself. Here, check this out… it took me a few hours to paint (FROM SCRATCH, mind you)

click it for the full verion!

And of course, if you want to download it for your own album artwork on iTunes, be my guest!

P.S. We watched Twilight for the first time, and we actually audio-recorded us watch it. That will be available to download soon. It’s a 100% pure natural reaction and commentary on the movie while watching it, so its not like Rifftrax where we deliberately try to riff off of every single thing. More about this crazy thing later! You can tell I despised that movie.

The prequels sucked, by the way.

I’m not a Trekkie. There, I said it. I don’t really like it an extra lot.

The only exposure I had of the great American TV series that started all kinds of things, was the original 1966 classic; and those were a few episodes on Croatian TV (subtitled) in 2002-ish. Don’t get me wrong, its cool stuff! I’m just not that into it.  So, naturally, if I’m not taken by Star Trek… I’m taken by another Star… with WARS!

Oh, you betcha. Star Wars was discovered by me at an early age: In fact, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know about Star Wars (much like many of us fine Americans). However, the funny thing is, as much as I knew about the Star

Courtesy of Court Jones

Wars series, I never saw the movies until a specific point in time (I sense its at around 1995) when I made my dad let me borrow one. My dad doesn’t care about anything fantasy or sci-fi (as much as he enjoys the films, he still doesn’t keep track of any of Fellowship Of the Ring’s names very well), so initially mixed up Star Wars with STAR TREK! Especially since I was wanting to watch a specific Star Wars movie featuring “Those walking things on the snow!”, to which my dad replied that “there are hundreds of episodes; it will be too difficult to find!”… and so I searched for it, and lo and behold, do I see on the VHS version: one of the “walking things!”; however on the cover of RETURN OF THE JEDI. So, in essence: I watched the last film first.

Oh well, it’s no big deal, as I already knew the (unfortunately) very well known “twist” about Darth Vader and Luke… (I wish that just died out, so the surprise would have still been there.)

So anyway, I like Star Trek for what it is: a Sci-Fi series where a crew of the space-vessel, the Enterprise, journey far and wide in search of exploration to unknown planets and worlds in space… the final frontier. Sounds very intelligent and interesting, doesn’t it?  A bunch of guys flying around exploring and meeting creatures and places, and occasionally confronting the obstacles that they run into… but all in all it was more about discovery. Star WARS on the other hand, was more about conflict (hence the WARS) and centered upon action and adventure. A space opera… however still smart, and well made.

The guy on the right is cooler. Just sayin'.

What’s going on with this new movie by the overrated genius J.J. Abrams? Well, besides being ridiculously overrated creative, and hiring camera-operators with Parkinson’s disease for all his movies he directs (and produces: see Cloverfield), he adds virtually nothing extremely creative or refreshing in his films. Kind of like if a nerd with a lot of intention but no real skill to make films, was given a lot of money to make remakes off of various wonderful (or overblown) franchises. So, basically, what this NEW Abramsified™ STAR TREK movie looks like (so far) a Star Wars film, encased in a Star Trek wrapper. Don’t believe me? Watch this dub we did, and you’ll see it.

Yes… as far as I’m concerned, Star Wars is better anyways.

and I don’t like it when fanboys make movies, but don’t understand how to make them the right way.

Oh, by the way: It’s Aragorn’s Birthday today.

Vozzie has an unfortunate beard.

Art is a reflection of the artist.  Every time a new piece is created, it reflects its creator.  there is a connection that an artist has to their art, no matter whether the artist even feels that they connect to their own work.  As my school year has progressed, more and more art has been required of me.  I am beginning to feel stretched thin.

It is not that I do not like the projects I am working on, or that I don’t enjoy creating, but there is only so much of me that I can allow to be expressed at once in a safe manner.  The rest of the projects I have to simply produce.

Over the years, the less art required of me, the less often I produce it.  However, I would have artistic explosions where pent up emotions and thoughts would force themselves out in a piece of art.

Now I find myself simply producing drawings and projects with little creativity.  Although I do have projects which I can back full-heartedly, I am unable to give my all on every assignment.  Maybe that’s just how art works.  It could be that some of the world’s “greatest” art was created out of a need for money, not an artistic expression.

That’s all I got.

-  Vozzie  -

Oi...

Well hey there! It’s Friday the 13th! You know what that means? More crappy remakes made by idiots who have nothing better to do than waste money, making pointless movies like this! Sadly they happen to be the film industry! That makes you wonder where the smart people are…  oh yeah, they’re at home… and they can’t make good movies because they’re not in the film industry. ‘Sucks.

Anyways, I took this lousy Friday the 13th to make a dub…. here you go.

No, I didn’t see this movie, ad no I will not see this movie. It looks like compost.

Vozzie has some stubble...

Apparently, Phil’s dub of the Watchmen trailer got ten thousand hits in one day.  That is quite an achievement!  Although I was not even remotely connected to this particular dub, I support Phil whole-heartedly, and am excited for this achievement!

In celebrity news, of course, Christian Bale made himself look angry, and Michael Phelps proved that money and talent do not equal common sense.

In my scholastic news, I am creating several interesting little animated pieces.  I have done a few traditional animations, including some flipbooks and a morphing exercise, but what I’m really excited about is my Jan Terri project.  Expect to see more about that in the months to come.

Also, I am looking to create a “Vozzie” movie clip, where my cut-out style is emulated in video using Adobe After Effects.  Also, I am looking to sleep more often and eat less pizza.

Now you’ve seen what a post with no content looks like.  Assorted facts of little value.  I hope you’re as dissatisfied with this as I am.  I apologize if the whole blog has a rather negative slant, but I am growing facial hair this month as a part of an event sponsored by my school, and it is rather unpleasant.

So… there it is.